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Bosnia ends warrant for Bosnian Serb leader after questioning / Photo: © AFP/File
Bosnia ends warrant for Bosnian Serb leader after questioning
Bosnian authorities on Friday dropped an arrest warrant against Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik after he agreed to be questioned over accusations of making secessionist moves in the divided Balkan nation.
After months of ignoring calls to speak with authorities, Dodik voluntarily reported to the public prosecutor's office, accompanied by his lawyer, "to be questioned as a suspect in the investigation", the prosecutor's office and Bosnian State Court said in a statement.
The Republika Srpska (RS) president had been wanted since March 18 by authorities who issued an arrest warrant after he refused to show up for questioning -- setting of a crisis that many observers considered the worst since Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
Despite the warrant, Dodik traveled abroad accompanied by Republika Srpska police, visiting neighboring Serbia, Russia and Hungary.
Bosnia’s request to Interpol to issue international warrant was refused by the international police agency.
Since the end of its war, Bosnia has been split into the Serb Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat Federation. Each has its own government and parliament, with only weak central institutions binding the country of 3.5 million people together.
- Conditional release -
"The suspect Milorad Dodik voluntarily presented himself on July 4 before the prosecutor's office of Bosnia-Herzegovina, accompanied by his lawyer, to be questioned as a suspect in the investigation,” said the joint statement.
The court accepted the prosecutors' proposal to "terminate" the warrant, and Dodik was given conditional release, it said.
According to the statement, the court ordered Dodik to regularly report to the authorities, and a new detention decision will be issued if he does not comply.
"It's an important thing for me, but it's also important in relation to those who were ill-intentioned and wanted destabilization, an escalation of problems in Bosnia through this case," Dodik told a public TV channel.
"I don't feel triumphalist. I'm tired of it all," he added.
The arrest warrant was issued after Dodik, 66, banned the central police and judiciary -- a move deemed secessionist by prosecutors.
That came after he was sentenced in February to one year in prison and banned from holding political office for six years for failing to comply with decisions of the international high representative who oversees the 1995 peace accord that ended the Bosnian war.
A decision on Dodik's appeal is expected soon.
Dodik rejected the trial as "political" and urged the Republika Srpska parliament to ban the federal police and judiciary from operating in the Serb statelet.
The State Prosecutor’s Office deemed the activities secessionist and opened an investigation that includes the entity's prime minister Radovan Viskovic and parliament president Nenad Stevandic.
Bosnia’s Constitutional court in May annulled the secessionists laws adopted by Republika Srpska which plunged Bosnia into a crisis described by some observers as the worst since the war.
L. Araujo--JDB
